Abstract
Seventy-eight teenage girls who were admitted to. the Adolescent Service of Douglas Hospital for behaviour disturbances were classified according to the diagnostic groups proposed by Jenkins. They underwent EEG. examinations, and their EEG. characteristics were statistically compared with the clinical features.
The main results were that the ‘over-inhibited’ girls showed more fast activity in temporal areas, a stronger reaction to eye opening and more positive spikes during chlorpromazine-induced sleep than the others; the ‘unsocialized aggressive’ patients had a larger amount of generalized slow activity and a greater difference between the occipital and temporal peak frequencies than the others. The ‘socialized aggressive’ group finally had more normal and better regulated EEG.s than the other two groups.
These results are generally plausible when related to the personality characteristics of these patients. It appears therefore that Jenkins' groups represent biological as well as psychosocial syndromes, in which certain types of electrical brain activity indicate predispositions to certain types of behaviour, and perhaps also vulnerabilities to certain types of environmental pathology.